I agree. I once thought to myself that I'd had a good life and then thought apart from that...and that...and that. I realised that I'd had bad things happen to me like everyone else, but the difference was that I'm a happy person inside and didn't dwell on it. I tend to have mini melt downs, then pick myself up and move on. I know a lad widowed in his twenties who visits his wife's grave almost daily (and this was six years ago). I thought big mistake....one day he'll meet someone and won't visit the grave and feel awful about it. It has to stop somewhere, so I think he should have been reasonable about it after the initial shock and not set himself such impossible standards. Another friend lost both her children within a couple of years, but (despite what she must really feel) she got on with her life and carried on laughing. I wonder if being happy is innate in some people or if you can be taught it.
Just caught the latest Dr Who. I enjoyed it....the series may be promising. In recent times it had got too clever for its own good...assuming that all watchers had photographic memories of previous plot lines. Give us monsters, illogical behaviour and excitement. Water that could creep under doors and reform and chase you across time and space....that's more like it. Liked the new girl pointing out that the name Tardis (Time and Relative Dimensions in Space) only works in English.
My son's birthday dinner tonight. His choice. Pizza and Rogue One. Lovely family night, even if the girls didn't get get the film
A man in Cleveland, USA is going around opening fire on random civilians and is streaming the whole thing live on Facebook. ****ing hell.
Hey, there's always a new way to kill people with guns in the USA. I know that sounds awful, but I'm really healing over as regards gun killing crime in America. I feel so utterly despairingly sorry for the victims, but America knows how to stop this stuff. They just won't do it. Myself of say, 20-30 years ago would be appalled at my words above. I'm not too proud of them either.
I didn't know that speeding penalties are being changed as of 24th April 2017. http://www.evo.co.uk/news/18773/speeding-fines-to-rise-in-april-2017-what-it-could-mean-for-you
Not a fast driver nor do I have a powerful car, but I still might get caught at the lower speed limits. Not deliberately, but just because it is so easy to enter a 20 limit from a 30-40 limit without noticing. Not recommended to slam your brakes on, so you may easily exceed the limit whilst slowing down. Never happened to me....mainly because traffic is slow on the Island anyway. My son would laugh like a drain if I got a speeding fine.
As a Speed Watch volunteer, and a member of the Parish Council, I can only applaud stiffer penalties for speeding, especially in built-up areas. Speeding cars are a curse which we live with only because we are too polite to stand in the road and curse, or too law-abiding to use Stingers. I did notice last weekend on a trip to Lancashire up the M5/M6, that when 50 mph limits are applied and kept to, there tends to be a complete absence of tailbacks, so less haste definitely does mean less stress. I do sympathise with Fran about 20 mph limits though. Modern cars aren't designed to go that slowly for long periods of time, something that should be borne in mind at the design stage. Having said that, electric/hybrid cars are probably OK, if someone can confirm or correct?
https://uk.yahoo.com/sports/news/chapecoense-win-first-title-since-001504138.html Rare happy news....Chapecoense win a tournament after being rebuilt following the loss of their squad in a plane crash.
Indeed, the proposed 20mph limits on any roads are a big problem for fossil fuel cars. They don't have to be modern either. The vast majority of cars have top gears which will not allow the vehicle to run smoothly and with relatively lower pollution at any speeds below 30mph**. Many vehicles even higher. Changing down a gear doesn't solve the problem. The engine spins faster, but the car is in the vicinity for longer at 20mph than it would be at 30mph. These are tiny details but they all mount up. Not mentioned above, but speed bumps, the city planners friend, must be the biggest extra contribution to urban pollution. With the inevitable speed up and slow down that occurs with speed bumps there is the inevitable puff of pollution out of the exhaust when the vehicle accelerates, and the inevitable shedding of dust when braking. Not to mention the unnecessary extra wear and tear on the vehicle every time it processes the bump, which inevitably produces more pollution. Speed bumps, 20mph, traffic lights at roundabouts, etc... are all about coping and processing a huge glut of vehicles on the road at the same time. A vehicle that was never envisaged in selling in such huge numbers that they virtually take over the world during rush hours. The electric vehicle is going to take a lot of this problem away. It will inevitably divert pollution to the source, the power station. It won't mind running at 20mph [there are no gears], and braking should eventually be used to further power the vehicle in stored energy. Basically, our ever changing stop-gap traffic laws are too much for fossil-fuelled vehicles to cope. Bring on the electric vehicle, in whatever source energy form it emerges - I think big banks of batteries are a stop-gap. **Incidentally, those sensible people, the Swedish, have always had a policy, in their SAABs and Volvos, to have markedly lower top gears than others marques. Whilst this means that they cope easier with Swedish winter conditions, it also means that their cars run quite happily at 20mph in top gear. But it still doesn't really solve the problem of pollution vs implied safety of 20mph.
I hate badly designed speed bumps. It should be possible to pass over a speed bump smoothly if you drive at the correct (safe) speed, but there are some on the Island that are impossible to navigate without a kerbump.
Years ago I read an article that suggested a timing system with traffic lights, such that if you kept to the right speed every one would be on green for you. The point was that there was no point in speeding up between lights as you would be slowed down. Made sense.
Yes, the problem is that they often chop the time periods up with sets of traffic lights so that that doesn't hold true at all times. One part of the day you can go through 3 or 4 sets of lights serenely, but if you do it at other times of the day, under exactly the same conditions you find that the lights will be out of that timed sequence. It's a bummer. One way I have been able to cheat lights on my motorbike is to accelerate like a bat out of hell to the maximum speed of the road and then I can get through light sequences where ordinarily one couldn't. Poor old car drivers have to wait, and wait, wait. I feel sorry for them. Traffic lights are a questionable traffic aid at various locations.
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_...ign=Feed: typepad/sethsmainblog (Seth's Blog) Short, sweet and important, IMO. Vin
I was caught in Southampton just before Christmas. Fair cop 35 in a 30, no excuse, having travelled 140 miles doing 70 on motorways, loss of concentration and crept over the limit. I was annoyed at the time but the driver awareness course was brilliant. (I wasn't going to go and take the points instead but someone on here, flt, I think suggested otherwise.) I thought I knew it all as a driver, I really didn't. Excellent course that would be useful for all drivers to attend. Am all for increasing fines, but education is better. I would rather have any fine though than loss of life or serious injury to someoneon my conscience
I'd love a hybrid/electric car, powered by (non-existing) solar panels on my roof but don't have the tens of thousands of pounds to buy it all and not sure if the hilly environment around here makes an electric car a sensible purchase...
